Bristol is an unique sporting city with several high profile professional clubs and they all have a reputation for developing homegrown talent.

The city is fuelled by this sporting success and BristolLive will be celebrating the best sporting talent in the city with a special mini-series.

Bristol Born and Bred isn't about the professional clubs - but it will look at how the sportsmen and women went from playing grassroots sports in Bristol to becoming proud Bristolians representing the city on the biggest stages.

This episode we have our youngest ever Bristol Born and Bred sportstar – Bristol Flyers Women’s player Molly James.

16-year-old James who comes from Shirehampton is the youngest player in the squad, and was recently selected for the Great Britain Under16s team. The first ever player from the south-west to do so.

Read More

Reporter Neil Maggs went to meet her where she trains, under a motorway bridge near her house in Shire. Every day the Abbeywood school pupil, demonstrates her dedication to her sport, doing sprint, circuit, and interval training there.

The interview was recorded a week before the announcement that she was selected for the last 16 training camp for the imminent European championships in Podgorico, Montenegro. The squad will be subsequently whittled down to 12. She is hopeful and confident.

James talks to Maggs about juggling school work and basketball training, and her dream to one day play professional in the US.

Read More

Bristol Born and Bred Series 1

James, was a high level gymnast until she gave up the sport aged 13, as she grew too tall. Her dad, Danny James, who played national league basketball for Plymouth and Sheffield, suggested she gave basketball a try.

She began her career with Bristol Storm, before moving to Flyers, where 3 years on she is a regular in the Flyers team, been capped by England Under 16s several times, and hopefully heading to a European Championships with Great Britain. Quite a meteoric rise.

Living at home at her parent’s house, there is a basketball hoop and court area installed in the garden, where she shoots hoops each day. She talks of the support her dad has given her, and how she lucky she feels, and it’s key role in supporting her ambitions.

However, living in working class Shirehampton, she is also acutely aware that basketball is a sport with a proven track record of engaging young people from deprived communities, and knows many young people don’t always have this. The role clubs must play to support kids into the game she says is crucial.

The conversation moves to the recent crisis in basketball where the entire board of England Basketball stood down, amid concerns over lack of funding and infrastructure. James expresses her frustrations that ‘posh sports’ like equestrian and those in the Winter Olympics receive funding, where basketball fails to do in relation to it’s impact on communities so effectively.

Read More

She talks fondly of her time playing at Flyers, and how being so much younger than the rest of the players, the after match socialising is very different for her. Where players head to the pub, she has a coke and goes back with her dad! She refers to many of her team mates as her basketball ‘mums.’

James is highly driven, motivated, and a very lively and funny individual. The conversation includes a singing of the national anthem, some trampolining, and even Maggs heading into the bar.